Merlin started a podcast called Back to Work on Dan Benjamin’s 5by5 network a few months ago, and it didn’t take long for it to catch on. We thought it would be fun to do something a little bit different from a typical sponsorship for the show, and Merlin had this idea to write and record a rock opera in five parts. As it turns out, he was kind of a big deal back in the day, so MailChimp commissioned the rock opera and told him to go wild.

We tend to think that sponsorship is more fun for everyone when we forget about trying to pitch a marketing message and figure out creative ways to celebrate the thing we’re sponsoring instead. That’s why we make custom slides and coasters and rock operas. They’re more engaging, more memorable, and they actually generate way more interest in MailChimp than a bulleted list of reasons to create an account.

Anyway, Merlin came back with "Sometimes There’s A Man," a set of songs that’s totally weird and self-referential and exactly what we hoped it would be. Fans of the show have already heard it, but we thought we’d give it a proper home and make it available to everyone. We even threw in some desktop wallpapers so you can cherish it forever.

Our goal with this was to do something fun that would benefit the listeners of the show. The fact that it doesn’t have anything to do with MailChimp is precisely the point. Plus, hearing Merlin profess his love for Dan never really gets old to us.